DISCONTINUED A Court Of Blood And Night (Tog & ACOTAR crossover)

38 - Rowan

I feel really good about this chapter.

If you're curious about what I listen to when writing this story (and any story, really) one of the (newer) songs is above. Idk. :)

The first night, Aelin slept soundly, and Rowan kept watch over her for most of that night, memorizing the details of her face. When she was awake, she seemed... Old. But now, with sleep casting its peace over her, she was young again. Nineteen-- nearly twenty, now, Rowan remembered with a jolt. She'd spent most of a year with Maeve. He ground his teeth. Never again, he promised himself silently, promised her. Nobody will ever take you from me again.

On the second night, the nightmares she'd been experiencing for the past few weeks returned. His skin was blistered painfully by the time he'd managed to wake her up, roaring her name and gripping her shoulders tightly. Her eyes shot open, wide and panicked and roving wildly, her breaths coming in shallow gasps. "Aelin!" He said for the eighth time, but loosened his grip on her shoulders. "It's a nightmare. It's not real."

Her eyes gold-ringed snapped to his and focused there. "Not real," she echoed, though the fire still blazed, hot and agonizing, and her breaths were still coming shallowly. Then her face crumpled and the fire went out, just like that, leaving his skin burned and blistered, and putting the room in abrupt darkness. He didn't have the chance to figure out what to do for her, because she pulled away from him and turned her back to him, refusing to meet his gaze. That shook him more than the fire and the panic. Panic, he could deal with. Fire, he could deal with. This, he wasn't sure he could deal with. If she was so scared by whatever she'd seen that she couldn't turn to him for comfort-- turn to him, her mate, for help...

"Aelin?" She pulled away she pulled away she pulled away--

No answer, just heaving, gasping sobs that told the stories of pains she hadn't yet faced. His eyes focused on her back. She hadn't worn anything especially revealing, and if he hadn't realized anything was wrong the moment he saw her again, he definitely knew the moment they went to bed the night before. She had loved torturing him with the scraps she called nightclothes before Maeve took her. Even despite the coverings, he was haunted by the image of brutal scarring. How much worse had it gotten with Maeve's sadistic new blood-sworn warrior standing in his abandoned place? A part of him regretted ever leaving Maeve behind, but he knew she would have employed Cairn either way.

"Aelin," he repeated again, more gently. "What happened?"

For a long time, he waited in silence for an answer. By the time his burn wounds had healed, she was still silent as the grave. The only sound was her quiet breathing and the blood roaring in his ears. He pressed his lips together into a thin line, debated asking her again, but then she said very quietly, "She made me do things."

His eyebrows knitted together, then smoothed out as he understood just how bad things could get when Maeve wanted them to. Dread dropped like a stone in his stomach. There were too many things she could have done, and each one Rowan thought of was progressively more horrifying than the last. "What kinds of things?" She didn't answer, and his heart beat faster, pounding like a furious war drum. "Aelin..." He was saying that a lot lately.

"I can't stop thinking about it." Her voice was softer now, and her muscles were visibly tense. "I understand what she wants, now-- really understand. And I don't want to. I want to just fall asleep and wake up in a place before all of this." She sounded numb, and that set off more warning bells.

He reached for her, needing to do something, anything... "Fireheart--"

"Don't call me that." Her voice was so sharp, so raw, that it took Rowan a moment to register what she said, and he froze in place. She had never had a problem when he called her that before.

"What did she make you do?" His voice was quiet now, as a lethal, cold rage settled over him. Not at her-- never at her-- but at Maeve and her cruel mind games. When she said nothing, Rowan repeated his question more sharply, now. Along with his anger, a fist of frozen fear wrapped around his pounding heart. Don't shut yourself away in your own head, he silently begged. When she still kept stubbornly silent, he said, "At least tell me how I can help you." He didn't like feeling so helpless.

More ringing silence. He was beginning to wonder if he would have to start chucking her favorite things out the window to get an answer from her when Aelin finally spoke, her hair bleached by the pale light filtering through the bedroom window, despite the curtain covering it. Her voice was quiet, and she sounded reluctant to speak. "Do you remember that time when you told me about Sollemere?" Rowan grew cold.

Sollemere had been a place of corruption and misdeed. Maeve had sent him and Lorcan to destroy it years ago, once it'd been made clear that they wouldn't change their ways. They had done just that. Sollemere was wiped off the map in the blink of an eye, and Aelin had never heard of Sollemere or its end until he told her about it. "Yes," he said quietly. "What about it?"

Instead of answering directly, she hesitated. Finally, she said, "You'll understand soon enough," and didn't speak again.

I was like, "You know what, it's like 2 hours until February first, so why not just publish it now?" Cause I'm friggin impatient this week.

Also, I discovered we have ants in the house by drinking from a water bottle. I'm so grossed out right now. Save me.